Remember the carefree, innocent days of the first quarter of 2013? Everyone was at the movies watching Identity Thief, or tuning in their radios to novelty hit “Thrift Shop.” And over at Eastman Kodak Co., life was in flux as it still was deep in the midst of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, cutting costs and selling off assets and otherwise trying to slim itself down.

Tuesday, Kodak gives its first look behind the financial curtains for 2014 as it comes out with its quarterly results for the first three months of the year. Such quarterly reports are priceless to the investment community as a snapshot of how a company actually is performing vs. the “We expect growth and good times ahead” rhetoric that’s commonplace. But the challenge in Kodak’s case will be comparing today’s Kodak with that Kodak of a year ago. In the first quarter of 2013, Kodak actually made a nice profit thanks to the $530 million it got for selling a big batch of digital imaging patents. It also spent $120 million that quarter – $58 million in lawyer and accountant and consultant fees alone – on various costs tied to its bankruptcy.

So what should we expect in the first quarter of 2014?

For one thing, probably yet more declining sales. The company basically said so earlier this year, when it put out its 2014 projections. 2012 saw revenues of $2.35 billion. For 2014, Kodak said expect more along the lines of $2.1 billion to $2.3 billion.

For another, though the company has shed a lot of costs in the course of its bankruptcy, such as what it was spending on retirees’ health care, the ship likely not righted yet. The company said 2014 “will be a year of continuing transition with substantial revenue and profitability growth in strategic technology businesses offset by earnings declines in mature businesses” – which has basically been its business model for close to a decade.

Kodak ended 2013 with operational EBITDA – one measure of profitability that doesn’t count certain expenses such as taxes and depreciation – in the black to the tune of $160 million. For 2014, it’s predicting operational EBITDA of $145 million to $165 million.

If Kodak’s 20-month Chapter 11 bankruptcy was a big transition from the old traditional Kodak to one with a lot of the bloat (and quite a bit of meat) cut out, think of 2014 as a transition from that transition. New CEO Jeff Clarke started in March, so any fruits of his labors (or blame for his performance) won’t come for months. And even comparing new Kodak to old becomes tricky, given that the first quarter of 2013 was this artificial bubble of time in the midst of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. But Tuesday’s results hopefully will at least give some insight into what the new Kodak – unfettered from so many big legacy costs – looks like on its own two feet.

Microsoft will sell you a copy of its Office 365 software for $70. Adobe Photoshop CS6 for a Mac will run you $700 to $1,000. Eastman Kodak Co.’s Prinergy Evo 5.2? That could have you rummaging under the couch cushions for a little more change – namely, $343,350.

That was the list price of the Evo 5.2 an undercover FBI agent allegedly bought in early 2013 online from a software pirate now facing serious federal time. The U.S. Justice Department announced this week that Navid Salehvaziri, 32, of Tehran, Iran, had been arrested for allegedly selling a pirated version of Kodak’s Prinergy Evo 5.2 online. A five-page affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Barry Couch, assigned to cybercrime investigations, makes for some interesting reading. According to Couch, Kodak employees brought to the FBI’s attention that a website, Kodakprinergy.com, was selling unauthorized versions of the software. And the FBI’s Rochester office bought a copy of the software, as well as a software license key that makes it work, online from an IP address in Tehran that traced to Salehvaziri. The FBI spent $1,500.

Salehvaziri was picked up at Dulles International Airport in December – he had previously received a visa to study software engineering at a Virginia school, according to Couch’s affidavit.

The most interesting question may be how this guy got access to Prinergy Evo 5.2 in the first place. According to Couch’s affidavit, Salehvaziri himself might have emailed Kodak in March 2012, posing as a legit owner of a “dongle” used as part of Prinergy Evo 5.2, and requesting the software key tied to that dongle. (A dongle is a small piece of hardware that you plug into an electronic device in order to turn on some features or functions). The dongle had once been owned by a legitimate Prinergy user in Turkey, Couch said. Armed with the dongle and the software key, Salehvaziri seemingly was able to get around security measures in a copy of Prinergy Evo 5.2 and then apparently sell that pirated version online, Couch said.

The Justice Department says Salehvaziri faces up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 fine, or both for the fraud charge.

So where’s Salehvaziri now? Apparently living with his brother in Annandale. Va., according to court paperwork. He’s wearing an electronic monitoring device, and “may only use the computer for school work and.or emailing family, but not do anything related to the conduct” that he is charged with, court paperwork says. Kodakprinergy.com still is up.

Ralf Gerbershagen is something of a photography buff. And the new CEO of Kodak Alaris – which counts among its lines Eastman Kodak’s camera film business (though Kodak still makes the camera film for Alaris) – took a quick census of his cameras. Fortunately, for good employee relations sake, it was a 50/50 split of digital and film.

Gerbershagen, a former telecommunications industry executive who lives in Germany and now heads up a U.K. headquartered company, was in Rochester this week to meet with local Alaris employees and see the manufacturing and R&D operations in Eastman Business Park. And in a sit-down with the Democrat and Chronicle, he talked about everything from the competitive landscape to plans later this year to come back to the States and take part in a motorcycle tour of the Finger Lakes. Here’s some of that conversation:

D&C: Why did you want this job in an unfamiliar set of industries, and what do you bring to Kodak Alaris?

RG: I thought this is an unbelievable opportunity. When you look at the ownership through (pension plan) KPP, with the long-term perspective and the willingness to make this business successful, that’s a fantastic support opportunity. KPP is looking into a 10-, 20-year horizon, it’s not a short-term investment. The other element I saw is the quality of people. There are so many dedicated people who love what they are doing here and have gone through very difficult times in the past, right? But I’m really surprised about the willingness, the motivation the teams have. What I can bring … I come from probably the most competitive and fastest moving industry, and this is a good balance of the culture we have. Kodak has the heritage and certain culture, probably I’m coming in complementary adding my background out of the telecommunications industry, which is agility, speed, customer focus, how do we move things forward.

RG: I think it didn’t hurt the company as much as I would have imagined. This is probably one of the biggest assets the company has, its strong customer relationships. I just met some customers in Brazil, its unbelievable how loyal these customers to Kodak Alaris are.

D&C: You met with the Rochester workforce. What was the message?

RG: We had a great town hall yesterday. What was important was to connect with people. We started with how to pronounce my name (laughs); do I understand the Kodak acronyms yet, I said “No”; what about my family and my private life, what are my values. We didn’t talk so much about business and strategy. For me it was more important to connect with people.

D&C: What are the metrics by which this company should be judged?

RG: We’re going through this at the moment. For me, I think a couple of things. I want to make this an exciting workplace. People who leave universities should look at Kodak Alaris and say that’s a place I want to work. We should provide really cutting edge technology in the areas we are working in. We have to meet the KPP requirements and grow the company.

D&C: There are no thoughts (by KPP) of selling Alaris or taking Alaris public in the future?

RG: This is a long-term investment for the pension fund. They’re looking at Kodak Alaris as a healthy business that comes in with a solid strategy and a growth plan over the next 10 yers.

D&C: In mergers and acquisitions, is there a particular M&A strategy this company is looking at?

RG: I can’t say anything about it. Everything is possible We can steer the company in any direction. Whatever makes sense to grow this.

D&C: You’re a photographer, what do you shoot in terms of subject matter?

RG: I have this large picture library at home, when I look through this, it’s all about people. I shoot everything. But most of the stuff is people. Everywhere I go – I was in Brazil, I took pictures from customers. As I’m traveling so extensively now, the way to stay in touch with my family, every day I shoot a little video and send it. It’s almost like a daily video and picture blog I send back to my family every day so they can follow me around the world.

D&C: What’s the competitive landscape look like?

RG: In the film and paper business, I think our key competitor is Fuji. Were looking at the moment how we can build a different business case. We have all the capabilities to drive more customer value in this business and keep this healthy for us. On the hardware side, there are all kinds of competitors out there. Kodak is leading the pack on the scanner side. The combination of technology leadership plus the brand, that’s an unbelievably strong combination. We are way ahead of the industry.

D&C: I assume for the foreseeable future, there’s no intentions of phasing out the Kodak aspect of Kodak Alaris.

RG: We’ve licensed the brand form Kodak. It’s such a strong asset and its a great brand. People love it and we leverage this as much as we can.

Kodak Alaris was spun off from Eastman Kodak Co. last year, picking up its photo kiosk, document scanner and camera film businesses. It also apparently got Kodak’s sense of humor in the form of its annual April Fool’s Day prank. Kodak long had a tradition of announcing gag products on April 1, such as a printer that printed live kittens.

This year, it’s Kodak Alaris that has picked up the tradition with its announcement of the Kodak Picture Kiosk Drone. As Alaris puts it, “You can print your favorite pictures whenever you want, wherever you want. It’s simple, just call 1-555- DroneMe to ‘phone drone’, text DroneMe to 5555 or use the handy Kodak Picture Kiosk Drone mobile app and within minutes our Picture Kiosk Drone will find you wherever you may be.”

My first word, spoken sometime in 1971, was “shoe,” or so my mother tells me. Xerox Corp.’s official Twitter account uttered its first words on Sept. 26, 2008, and what it had to say was a lot more elaborate: “Finally got the logo to fit within new brand guidelines. Hello twitter world!” Meanwhile Eastman Kodak Co.’s @Kodak Twitter account’s first words came on April 10, 2010: “thanks for the great feedback kelly! happy to help,” in response to a Tweet from a Kodak Gallery user raving about its customer service.

Twitter unveiled a fascinating time machine with a search function that lets users easily find the first tweets of anyone on Twitter. And some companies with a presence on Twitter dove headfirst into that bay of the social media ocean. @Paychex on Jan. 11, 2010, greeted the world with a “Hello Twitterverse! Very excited to officially launch @Paychex Twitter! Stay tuned for helpful resources for your business.” Harris RF Communications on Aug. 19, 2011, was all flag plant-y with its “Harris RF is on the air! @HarrisDelivers”

And you can almost see the “aww-shucks” earnestness of Frontier Corp. with its @FTR_Northeast inaugural tweet on Sept. 28, 2011: “So glad to be on #Twitter to connect with @FrontierCorp customers in the Northeast Region, both NY and PA. Let us know how we can help!” Ditto for Carestream Health with its Sept. 18, 2009, “Hello world. Happy to join twitter and looking forward to our conversations!”

Wegmans Food Markets almost seems like the freshman who somehow snuck into the seniors’ party with its Aug. 26, 2009, “Wow! The first official Wegmans tweet!”

Bausch + Lomb’s first @BauschLomb tweet can be read so many ways, from the traightforwardness of a bank statement to almost with a wry grin: “Bausch & Lomb corporate communications has joined Twitter.” I prefer to think it was the latter.

Other companies are no nonsense. “Have you checked your tire pressure this month? You loose .3% gas mileage for every 1 psi under your four tires are,” Monro Muffler Brake Inc. helpfully announced to the social media world on Oct. 19, 2009.

Sutherland Global had a new website. And it told you so on Twitter on July 15, 2009: “new homepage: http://www.sutherlandglobal.com” (You don’t even need the Twitter first-tweet search for that baby – it’s the only tweet on that account).

And here at the paragraph factory, @DandC’s first foray into Twitter came on Dec. 7, 2008, with “Buffalo Bills Report Card: Staff writer Sal Maiorana gives the Bills their grades in a 16-3 loss to the Mia.. ” followed by a link. C’mon, people, keep it within 140 characters.

Eastman Kodak was a big iconic business presence in northern Colorado nearly as much as it has been in Rochester. Kodak operated for decades in Windsor, Colo., for decades, with manufacturing, equipment design, and product testing operations there, until it sold those operations late last year as part of its Kodak Alaris spinoff. Which probably was part of the thought process when beer brewer New Belgium Brewing in nearby Fort Collins, Colo., debuted its wheat beer Snapshot this week. And the Snapshot label features a hand-painted Kodak Instamatic 104 camera – one of its biggest product successes ever. New Belgium didn’t return a message seeking comment, but on its blog the brewery said about the camera image, “We thought it relevant to Snapshot, and nostalgic, and awesome.” Here’s the bad news – New Belgium doesn’t distribute in New York state. Road trip to Erie, Pa., for a tasting, anyone?

It’s almost like a scene out of an action/adventure flick – eminent doom and destruction about to come crashing down, the Hero trying frantically to find that right combination to avoid the end. That could be cutting the right wire on the bomb, figuring out the right magical incantation to drive away the evil wizard’s henchmen, flipping the right switch on the control panel to stop the technononsense thing from causing the proton field to hypercharge the gobbledygook. Or it could be finding the right legal argument to stop Kodak stock from becoming nothing but worthless paper. In U.S. Bankruptcy Court in recent weeks, numerous shareholders filed close to 200 objections with varying legal arguments. And in a court hearing last week in lower Manhattan, two shareholders – one in court and one on the phone – again tried the same, looking for that right approach that would perhaps make the court go ‘No, y’know what? This Kodak approach IS in fact nonsense.” They, of course, failed, and the court signed off on the Kodak plan. But in that hearing, and in some of the objections, and in a letter filed with the court last week, one argument has come up repeatedly – if Kodak’s U.S. operations filed for bankruptcy in January 2012, and only Kodak’s U.S. operations, and if each share of stock is supposedly a small slice of the ownership in the company overall, how can Kodak’s emerging-from-bankruptcy plan involve cancelling out all that stock? Shouldn’t shareholders still own a piece of Kodak’s non-U.S. operations? It’s an interesting question. Though on the face of it, there are some logic problems. For one, Kodak’s bankruptcy and the solution of that has never been just about its U.S. operations. The $2.6 billion plus shortfall in Kodak’s UK pension fund, for example. If the bankruptcy was just about U.S. operations, then that huge debt would be the responsibility of Kodak’s international operations to take care of, right? So again, shareholders might be left holding nothing. More to the point, says Kenneth M. Ayotte, a Northwestern professor of law and bankruptcy expert, stock doesn’t exactly work that way: “The party that files for Chapter 11 is usually a legal entity of some kind. Often, it is a parent corporation (say, ABC, Inc.) that owns some subsidiaries (suppose ABC Canada and ABC Brazil are subsidiaries of ABC Inc.). The subsidiaries may also file for bankruptcy along with the parent, but they might not. The ownership interests in ABC Canada and ABC Brazil are assets in the bankruptcy estate of ABC, Inc.—not much different than any land, inventory, etc. that ABC, Inc. owns– whether or not these subs are in bankruptcy themselves. If, in a reorganization plan of ABC, Inc, the shareholders are wiped out, these shareholders lose their ownership interest in everything that ABC, Inc. owns—the land, etc. and also ABC, Inc’s ownership interests in its subsidiaries. This happens because the ABC, Inc. shareholders own a piece of the subs only indirectly, through their ownership of ABC, Inc.” It’s been fascinating to watch the Kodak process and legal arguments unfold. As an outsider with no dog in the fight, it’s easy to see it from both perspectives – the shareholders with their numerous arguments from all angles, the judge with his constant counterpoint of “show me your proof – not speculation or hypothesis – that what you’re saying would actually mean more money being available for creditors.” Come Sept. 3 or thereabouts, when Kodak technically emerges from bankruptcy, shareholders won’t actually lose much – Kodak shares right now are going for about 6 cents each. But if Kodak turns around and becomes a growth company again, it’s undoubtedly going to be a bitter moment for those former shareholders.

Radiohead made huge waves in 2007 when it did something that seemed kind of revolutionary – it made its In Rainbows album available for free. Listeners were asked to pony up whatever they thought was reasonable, but the album could be downloaded for gratis by free riders if they so chose. That pay-as-you-wish model or versions like it has since been tried out by a variety of entertainers and entertainment-related businesses, from the likes of Nine Inch Nails and Louis C.K. to NoiseTrade. Now a pair of the biggest names in the comic book world are behind a similar effort there. “The Private Eye,” written by Brian K. Vaughn and drawn by Marcos Martin, is on one hand a noir detective story about a P.I. hired by a gorgeous dame to do some digging (a very familiar trope) that also happens to be set in the year 2076, when instead of community and sharing the zeitgeist of the day puts a huge premium on personal privacy to the point where the average citizen walks around in costumes and disguises. Because of a previous computer catastrophe, it’s again become an analog world – the main character shoots on film, and one tattooed octogenarian character has an iPhone that hasn’t worked in decades. On the other hand, “The Private Eye” is also a bold experiment in comic booking. Each issue of the series (there’ve been two put out so far this year) is ostensibly free, with readers asked to put up what they want (Vaughn and Martin suggest 99 cents an issue, which is hugely below the going rate for digital comics today).

Illustrator Marcos Martin is well known in contemporary superhero comics, having done work one everything from the “Batgirl: Year One miniseries” to (a personal favorite) the “Dr. Strange: the Oath” miniseries. The 40-year-old – a native of Barcelona, Spain, where he lives today – discussed “The Private Eye,” a Kodak cameo and his brief time in LeRoy in an interview with the Democrat and Chronicle:

Why the flexible price tag on each issue, instead of setting a price yourselves?

We think it’s the best possible model since it establishes a new, more direct relationship between readers and creators in which they both share equal responsibility for the success of the work. As creators, we are responsible for creating quality product to the best of our abilities and the reader is responsible for deciding the value he/she thinks that product has, according to each one’s perception, possibilities and personal circumstances.
Also, one of our goals when going the digital route was to reach a wider audience. And setting an unmovable price tag on the product would not only go against that but also against the very nature of the Internet. Instead of criminalizing the readership beforehand we trust they’ll back our project if they feel it’s worth it.

The note at the end of issue 2 says this has been more successful than you and Brian Vaughn thought it would be? How much moreso? What did you expect in terms of paid readership? And how far has it exceeded that? Has issue 2 been as successful or has there been some dropoff?

Well, we really had no idea since this was something that had never been tried in such a way in comics before. But we certainly didn’t expect the tens of thousands of visits and downloads we got. And neither did we ever expect to have more than half of the readership pay.
Issue 2 has seen a logical drop-off since we couldn’t repeat the impact we had when we launched. But it’s still doing excellent in terms of downloads and especially, payment-to-download ratio. Also, since previous issues are always available we keep increasing the downloads and sales for issue one.

What are the costs involved in a production like Private Eye? Do you see this model serving as a substitute for the existing digital comics model – like what Comixology offers?

We have the same costs involved in the production of any printed comic, minus all of the editorial, printing and distribution costs. In exchange, we have to add the webhosting and downloading costs which are minimal. And now, the translation fees for the French and Portuguese versions.
That means we’ve all been working for free until the comic has come out (Brian, colorist Muntsa Vicente, me and most importantly, Jose, our friend in charge of putting up the website and all technological aspects of the project).
And we don’t see our model as a substitute for any existing models, digital or not, but rather we see all of them coexisting as different options for the readers and authors to choose from.
Also, we don’t think big corporations like Marvel or DC could benefit from our business model since it relies too much on the direct relationship between readers and creators.

Has there been much of a problem with piracy or free riders?

I don’t think so, no. We are giving the option of downloading the comic for free after all, so we don’t really consider free riders a problem.

Overall, do you see Private Eye more as a business venture or as a work of art? As a work of art, I personally am enjoying it immensely. As a business venture, how is it working out?

I’d say we see it more as a creative adventure. First and foremost we’re focused on creating and enjoyable and entertaining comic-book. But we’re obviously, also very interested in using this as a way to open new opportunities for readers and creators and perhaps even, a new business model for the medium. We have no idea where any of this will take us or if we’ll succeed but we’re surely having a hell of a good time trying to find out.

Side question – in Issue 1, the use of corporate logos gives such a feel of reality. Are those specified in the script, or do you choose those? Why the big “Kodak” logo in the foot chase scene? Kodak being headquartered here in Rochester, that stuck out with me.

Funny you would ask since, even though I’m from Barcelona, Spain, I lived for a year in LeRoy, a small town just a half an hour away from Rochester, so I know the city well and I even got to visit the Eastman House in a high school trip.
The use of real world logos and references is something for which both Brian and me are responsible. In that particular scene you’re refering to, it was my choice to use those corporate logos as a clue for the reader to start wondering about this future we were presenting. These are big corporations that are now going through financial trouble because of the advent of the digital business. But in this new, analogical future they would be thriving again. There are many that will be showing up every now and then but Kodak, I think, is one of the most recognizable and representative examples of this reality.

When did you live in LeRoy? What’s the story behind that? Love that Jell-O Museum.

Ha! I think I visited the Jell-O museum on my first day there! Not too much of a story, I’m afraid. I spent my senior year in high school there as a foreign exchange student, back in 1989-90. Loved it, though. Best experience of my life.

Eastman Kodak Co. makes digital printing equipment and motion picture film. Uni-Pixel Inc. makes specialty films for the touchscreen market. Together, they’re making a lot of controversy in certain corners of the investment world. The announcement earlier this month that Kodak and Uni-Pixel had signed an agreement that would see Kodak make sensors for Uni-Pixel’s UniBoss touch sensor film was a big shot in the arm for Uni-Pixel stock, as shares skyrocketed 16 percent in one day in large part based on the optimism that with Kodak backing it, big things were in the works for Uni-Pixel. And that optimism has largely stuck – Uni-Pixel shares closed Friday at $38.70, when they’d been trending closer to $30 before the Kodak announcement. But for some investors, the deal smelled more like Operation Fortitude – the bait-and-switch fake ‘em pulled off by the Allies before D-Day to mask the location of the true invasion. In this case, a number of investors questioned whether Uni-Pixel and Kodak had made up the whole thing.

As one investor emailed me, “Many people who have sold short the stock of Uni-Pixel have accused it of running a scam, of not being able to manufacture these touch screens,” and then asked for any clues that might indicate Kodak isn’t in fact moving forward with its end of the deal.

Another wrote asking if I could get him into Eastman Business Park to see first hand the renovation work, so he knows it’s actually going on. (Raising in my mind the question of, if you need that level of proof, would even seeing workers in a building doing construction-y stuff be convincing enough).

Kodak spokesman Christopher Veronda said the announcement “was clear” and the facility will begin production this fall.

On the surface, the UniPixel deal looks promising. And hey, touchscreens are rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Chances are decent you’re reading this on a phone or tablet with a touchscreen. UniPixel currently has a market cap of about $380 million. That’s a lot of cheddar for a company that, in 2012, had sales of $76,000 (yes, that’s not a typo) and losses of more than $9 million. But those numbers are really that big a deal – tech companies typically see big losses and little income at the beginning as they move from R&D to commercialization phase.

And, Uni-Pixel of late has been showing a lot of promise. Earlier this month, it announced it had licensed its UniBoss touch sensor film technology to “a major touch-screen ecosystem partner,” with the money to be used to build out more UniBoss production capacity. It was days later that Uni-Pixel and Kodak announced they jointly would be putting $24 million into a joint manufacturing setup in Eastman Business Park.

So is Uni-Pixel a scam with outdated technology that it cannot even get to work, fronted by a bunch of mediocre at best business people? Maybe. Are the criticisms a load of selective facts and outright distortions put forward by short sellers just to drive the stock price down? Again, maybe. The question becomes, what would Kodak gain from being part of such a scam? It’s not as if Kodak management is seeing their vastly underwater stock suddenly become gold. Perhaps the skeptics see Kodak’s management being taken in by Uni-Pixel’s monorail song and dance. Or maybe the stars have aligned nicely for a company that has seen its traditional film business wither on the vine – Kodak wants to get into functional printing (using print technology as a way of manufacturing things like sensors) and Uni-Pixel has found a way to ramp up production without having to spend millions upon millions on new plants and equipment and the two will be whistling all the way to the bank. Only time will tell.

The end may be that much nearer for Kodak’s Personal Imaging and Document Imaging businesses. The company is in the midst of selling off the two as one of the last major steps remaining in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And company President Laura Quatela reportedly told photography industry newssource Amateur Photographer that it would start taking bids for its PI biz as soon as the end of this month (Personal Imaging including Kodak’s photographic film and photo paper businesses, though not its motion picture film business). She reportedly told Amateur Photog that an auction of PI would likely come in late March, with the sale wrapped up by the end of June. In a letter this week to employees, Kodak CEO Antonio Perez said that along with selling the PI and DI operations, Kodak has a number of other “twists and turns left in our path toward emergence” from bankruptcy: closing on the sale of its intellectual property, negotiating some kind of settlement to its U.K. pension obligations, . We have several important issues to conclude. To exercise our right to convert our interim financing to exit financing, we must meet the conditions of our financing agreement including those pertaining to the IP sale, our U.K. pension obligations, and meet certain business targets. “No doubt, 2013 will signal a new beginning for each of us – whether as part of the emerging commercial-based Kodak, or within the PI or DI businesses that I am confident will continue to deliver outstanding value to their customers and their owners,” Perez wrote. When asked about those timeframes as laid out by Quatela, a Kodak spokesperson declined to comment except to say that the company remains on track to wrap up the DI and PI sales in the first half of the year.

It’s hard to overstate how big these sales, particularly DI, will be to Rochester. Of Kodak’s 5,000-ish local workers, a significant number work in DI. And a lot of the company’s Eastman Business Park real estate still revolves around DI-type operations. The company so far hasn’t broken out the details such as how many employees and what kind of assets will be involved in the sale (we know it affects at least Quatela and Dolores Kruchten, heads of PI and DI, respectively, who will go with those business lines when they are sold). But as that sale process speeds up, a clearer picture should emerge.

UPDATE: Responding to a question I fired off while writing the above blog post, Veronda has clarified one aspect of the PI sale – specifically how Kodak will sell PI yet still keep its entertainment imaging infrastructure. According to Veronda, “Since we have only one location (Eastman Business Park Bldg. 38) where we manufacture film, we will retain that facility. The buyer of PI would likely engage us with a supply agreement to provide still camera films.” So now you know.

Diana Louise Carter was born at Rochester General Hospital the same year it opened and reared in Bristol, Ontario County. After college and grad school, her first reporting job was on a small newspaper in Western Massachusetts. She returned to Rochester in late 1987 to work for the Democrat and Chronicle. Carter covers agriculture and banking. She lives in the Upper Monroe neighborhood of Rochester with her husband and three children.

Matthew Daneman is a business reporter with the Democrat and Chronicle, covering imaging, optics, printing, telecommunications, manufacturing and a host of other topics. He lives in Rochester with his wife, Sheila. If he could have authentic western N.Y. chicken wings morning, noon and night, he would.

Tom Tobin has 30 years experience with Gannett newspapers as an editor and reporter. He lives in Rochester and has two children: Lia, 16, and Melissa, 11.